Golden Gate Bridge suicide nets delayed two years, as...

1of5A construction worker standing on scaffolding works on installing large struts as part of a planned suicide net underneath the east side of the Golden Gate Bridge.Photo: Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

2of5Kymberlyrenee Gamboa and her husband, Manuel Gamboa, toss a rose from the Golden Gate Bridge in memory of their son Kyle.Photo: Mason Trinca / Special to The Chronicle

3of5Kathy Contway describes her grandson, Kyle Gamboa, who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge to his death in 2013.Photo: Liz Moughon / The Chronicle 2018

4of5Kymberlyrenee Gamboa sets up a small memorial for her son, Kyle Gamboa, at the Golden Gate Bridge.Photo: Mason Trinca / Special to The Chronicle 2018

5of5A construction worker stands on scaffolding while working to install large struts used as part of a planned suicide net on the Golden Gate Bridge.Photo: Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge suicide net, a coarse web of steel designed to catch and cradle people who jump, is two years behind schedule — a puzzling and frustrating delay for those championing the project.

Anticipated for 2021, the safety barrier will now be completed in 2023, officials with the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District said Wednesday. They cited problems with the lead contractor, Shimmick Construction Co., which was acquired by global engineering firm AECOM two years ago. The sale led to distraction and turnover, slowing many projects down, said district General Manager Denis Mulligan.

“They were slow to mobilize on the job site,” Mulligan said, noting the complexity of the bridge nets, which require workers to lug heavy equipment in a harsh environment, 200 feet above the water. The net itself is an intricate skein of marine-grade stainless steel — enough to fill seven football fields.

He said AECOM lagged on building temporary construction platforms beneath the span. And the company presented an optimistic timeline that didn’t pan out, underestimating the time needed to complete certain steps.

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Backers of the suicide barrier say a two-year delay equals 60 lives lost. At least 26 people died by plummeting from the bridge this year. Security patrols made 156 successful interventions.

“We’ve been averaging 30 deaths a year,” said Paul Muller, president of the nonprofit Bridge Rail Foundation, which formed to end suicides at the Golden Gate. A barrier would likely do that: Studies from Harvard University and UC Berkeley suggest that a person who landed on the net is unlikely to jump again. Nine out of 10 people who are stopped from committing suicide do not kill themselves at a later date.

After the project had ground through a laborious bureaucratic approval process, Muller was baffled by the latest delay. Everything else appeared to be going smoothly: District engineers had planned for pea-soup fog and other extreme weather conditions, and most of the raw materials have been fabricated.

“This thing with the contractor sounds avoidable,” he said.

District officials estimated the two-year delay from an updated schedule that AECOM submitted two weeks ago. Mulligan said the district has agreed to minor change orders that didn’t affect the cost of the project. The contractor filed one big claim for $55 million after bridge staff directed the company to design work platforms that comply with federal safety standards.

Dayna Whitmer walks beneath a suicide deterrent system net at the Richmond facility where the project is being built.

Photo: Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

The bridge district rejected the claim, but Mulligan expects more to follow. He said Shimmick and its partner in the project, Danny’s Construction Co., “underbid the job” — the second-lowest bid was $30 million higher — but at that time, in 2016, the district was required by law to accept the least expensive proposal.

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In a statement Wednesday, AECOM said its acquisition of Shimmick had not stymied the project.

“The Shimmick-Danny’s Joint Venture is committed to working with our client to ensure the successful delivery of this important project,” the statement said. “The acquisition ... does not have any relevance to project execution.”

Nearly 1,700 people have leaped to their deaths from the orange span, which has carried a dark allure from the time it opened in 1937. The same harp-string structure that draws tourists from around the world also promises, for some, a romantic-seeming but brutal end — 250 feet in four seconds, to hit the choppy waters of the bay.

Ideas for a suicide deterrent began circulating as early as the 1950s, when officials considered stringing barbed wire above the rail. But it took decades, and a shift in societal attitudes toward suicide, for the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District to begin formal engineering studies in 2006. Another decade passed before the district’s Board of Directors awarded a $211 million contract to Shimmick and Danny’s to design and build the net.

Earlier this year, the project appeared to be gaining momentum. Bridge district officials gathered at a Richmond construction yard in May to show off a 300-foot mock-up of the net, its webbing supported by struts the color of ripe fruit. Roughly 80% of its components are complete, including 309 out of 369 net supports, the new bridge railing and wind fairings, and 105,000 square feet of netting, all manufactured at plants in Oregon, Illinois, Missouri, Alabama and Connecticut.

“Typically, with a big job like this, you run into problems with fabrication shops not able to supply enough materials — but that’s not the case here,” Mulligan said. “This time, the supply chain is delivering.”

At the Richmond yard, workers are learning to tension the cables and fasten the struts before building the real net over the bay.

Now the contractor is pulling double shifts, closing three lanes of traffic five nights a week, while 50 workers lift steel and other equipment over the side of the bridge. During the day, another 50 workers toil on the platforms. Five of them jut out from beneath the bridge deck, and AECOM is building a sixth, Mulligan said.

Yet progress is sluggish.

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Manuel Gamboa III works through life after his brother, Kyle, unexpectedly committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge in 2013. His parents have attended every Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District board meeting since then to advocate for a suicide barrier. In August 2018 construction for a steel net began.

“We get three minutes (during public comment) to talk about our son,” Gamboa said. “So the board has gone through our whole journey of grief, right from the shock of it happening.”

Kymberlyrenee Gamboa holds a photo of her son Kyle during a ceremony at the Golden Gate Bridge Welcome Center Plaza.

Photo: Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle 2013

Gamboa worked for 16 years managing construction contracts for Sacramento County, so she’s attuned to the inevitable complications and holdups. But for her, the bridge has a different kind of urgency. Kyle had a magnetic smile and a bedroom full of sports trophies — his senior year at Sacramento Waldorf School was just beginning when he died.

She was disappointed about the delay, and promised to keep attending every single meeting until the project is complete.

Rachel Swan covers transportation for The Chronicle. She joined the paper in 2015 and has also reported on politics in Oakland and San Francisco.

Previously, Rachel held staff positions at the SF Weekly and the East Bay Express, where she covered technology, law and the arts. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in rhetoric from the University of California, Berkeley.